The release of the Paladin in Diablo 4 has been a long time coming, with Blizzard noting that it was the most requested class before its launch at the start of Season 11. While Diablo 4's Paladin is iconic in its own right, the class draws heavily on its classic iteration from Diablo 2. As a result, the Diablo 4 development team had its work cut out for it when translating Diablo 2's Paladin gameplay to Diablo 4's modern systems.
The Best War Games spoke with Diablo 4 Lead Class Designer Dominick Sileo about the creation of the Paladin and the challenges the team faced in modernizing the class from its Diablo 2 incarnation. Sileo was able to share some insightful details about the design philosophy for Diablo 4's Paladin, along with some of the accommodations that had to be made in order to make the class feel at home in a modern Diablo game. The result is a compromise that blends the nostalgia fans of Diablo 2 have for the class with the gameplay goals the team had for a modern interpretation of the holy knight archetype.
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Diablo 4 Developers Describe How the Paladin's Aura Skills Had to Be Paired Down from Diablo 2
Although the Paladin isn't the only holy knight class in Diablo—the Crusader of Diablo 3 is a riff on this same archetype—there are some core aspects of the class that are important parts of its identity that the developers wanted to incorporate as modern takes in Diablo 4. Right off the bat, Sileo brings up the Paladin's Zeal skill as an example of this desire, noting how Zeal wasn't a part of the Crusader's skills in Diablo 3, but felt necessary for the Paladin to have in Diablo 4. As Sileo states,
When we looked at Zeal, we knew we wanted to bring it back. We found it to be central to the core of the Paladin, but it was like "hey, how do we really modernize this?" We did a ton of collaboration and a ton of early prototyping with animation and VFX to experiment and see what it would look like now. If Zeal didn't even exist, and we just somehow made it up, how would that look?
This notion of essentially redesigning parts of Diablo 2's Paladin to fit within the modern gameplay of Diablo 4 ran deep within the class's development. Even though the Zeal skill was part of the Paladin's kit in Diablo 2, the team wanted to reimagine what the skill would look like if it were a completely new concept unique to Diablo 4 in order to create the sense of a class designed wholly for the modern age.
How the Concept of the 'Aura Sandwich' Influenced the Paladin's Gameplay Design
Arguably, the defining feature of the Paladin is its Aura skills, but these skills also comprise some of the key differences between Diablo 2's Paladin and its Diablo 4 version. In particular, the Paladin's Auras from Diablo 2 had to be cut back for Diablo 4, with Sileo noting that there are 20 Auras in Diablo 2 and 24 skill tree slots in Diablo 4, so the class would almost be entirely Auras if all 20 returned from Diablo 2.
For reference, the Paladin's Auras in Diablo 2 include:
- Prayer
- Resist Fire
- Resist Cold
- Resist Lightning
- Defiance
- Cleansing
- Vigor
- Meditation
- Redemption
- Salvation
- Might
- Thorns
- Blessed Aim
- Concentration
- Holy Fire
- Holy Freeze
- Holy Shock
- Sanctuary
- Fanaticism
- Conviction
Whereas Diablo 4 only gives the Paladin 3 Auras: Fanaticism, Holy Light, and Defiance Aura. To supplement these Auras and give players the feel of having a much wider range of Auras to utilize, Sileo poses the concept of the "Aura Sandwich," which he explains,
What if somebody is really sad about Meditation not coming back for some reason, because they just really like the regen from it? Well, you can actually upgrade your Auras into this "Aura Sandwich" and then those are the different Auras that would kind of compound into this giant mega Aura.
Sileo goes on to note that this design choice was born out of the desire to keep the Paladin's Auras from being too overwhelming. Limiting them to 3 core Auras, instead of 20, that could be compounded and altered using Uniques like the Dawnfire gloves, or the active and passive abilities each of the 3 Auras possesses, allows for a simple Aura setup on the surface with more complexities the deeper players delve into them.
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The Goal of the Paladin in Diablo 4 Was to Balance Nostalgia with a Modern Feel
While the gameplay of the Paladin was heavily modernized for Diablo 4, the development team wanted to keep elements of the class's classic Diablo 2 version to give longtime fans a sense of nostalgia as they were playing. Sileo reveals that the key to achieving this balance came from the sound design of the Paladin, noting specifically in relation to the sound of the Paladin's Blessed Hammer skill,
There's that very lo-fi, iconic sound from 1999 or 2000, and we wanted to make sure that that felt right...It was really about balancing nostalgia, but making it so that you're actually playing a modern game, and making it so that neither was overwhelming.
Despite some of the trade-offs in the skill department, the Paladin of Diablo 4 has enough elements that Diablo 2 fans will be familiar with to make it feel like that classic class, such as in its sound design. Additionally, the "Aura Sandwich" concept feels both like a modern game design choice that gives players the freedom to engage with the mechanic at the level they're comfortable with while still recapturing many of the features that made Diablo 2's Paladin so iconic in the first place. The balance of these two sides of the Paladin's design philosophy shows the tightrope-walk approach the developers have to reviving an iconic class in a way that feels new yet does justice to the original.
Diablo 4
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